Letter From Bahrain

With one eye on the airport and future uncertainty, and the other eye on this plush villa and domestic tranquility, it feels like it’s time for a recitation of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy from the first scene of Act Three.  To go or not to go; that is the question.

How many times can you retreat to the swimming pool to escape this suckworthy heat?  How many times can you watch Oprah Winfrey fawn over the banality of Sting or Barbra Streisand?  How many times can you read in the Gulf Daily News about another Indian expatriate found hanged from a ceiling fan?

Just to bust out of this scene, I went to Seef Mall the other night to see Michael Moore’s documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11.  It is a damning portrait of George Bush. Since I’m biased against the Supreme Court-appointed president, I knew the film would only reinforce my views.  True to form, insights from Bush are as interesting as the body's passage of dissolution.

The hardest segment to witness is Bush sitting in that Florida classroom, idly thumbing through a children’s book after being told of the greatest foreign attack on U.S. soil in history. He appears like a servile nitwit.

Watching the film in a theatre of a largely Arab audience is mighty weird.  Regardless of Moore’s presentation of disclosures about the cozy relationship between the Bush family and Saudi royalty - especially “Bandar” Bush, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. – and the bin Laden family, there is no dispute about the carnage unleashed on Iraq.  

War is hell, as American Union General William Sherman said during the Civil War.  It’s one of the worst forms of degradation because it is state-sanctioned murder. 

There may be significant distinctions between a Bahraini and an Iraqi, but it is far easier to empathize with atrocities that occur in a common cultural sphere then to connect with events halfway across the world.  An American can’t possibly fathom what the Iraqi people endure, but a Bahraini can when similarities involve the same language, the same religion, the same architecture, the same customs, and the same values. 

Moore is an excellent documentary film maker.  He knows how to put it together.  Ticket sales of $100 million prove him out.  He seems perfectly disarming as the rumpled slob-next-door, exposing hypocrisy and championing the poor, disenfranchised of America.  Yet Moore is an extremely rich liberal. He owns a $1.9 million home in New York City, and a $1.2 million home in Michigan. Moore also has no problem charging $30,000 a speech to denounce the wealthy.

Nonetheless, the film is worthy of serious consideration.